


little talks

by robotsdance



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Declarations Of Love, F/M, First Kiss, Winterfell, acts of love, acts of love are much easier than talking about it, canon divergence-season eight, vouching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 10:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdance/pseuds/robotsdance
Summary: Brienne isn’t at Winterfell when Jaime arrives. She isn’t there to vouch for him and he’s sentenced to die by dragonfire.Brienne returns just in time to make sure that doesn’t happen, but she doesn’t want to talk about it.She doesn’t want to talk to Jaime at all.





	little talks

**Author's Note:**

> just a quick prompt fill that got out of hand.

Jaime stands alone, not far from the snow-covered path he walked as he stumbled towards Winterfell in the early morning light. Exhausted and travel-weary he had been dragged to the great hall as soon as the guards could gather the people he is now looking up at once again.

The dragon queen and Lady Sansa and Jon Snow and the rest of the Starks look down at him from where they stand on the higher ground. What looks like every other man, woman, and child at Winterfell stand behind them, including Tyrion. Jaime wishes Tyrion did not have to see this.

But Daenerys Targaryen wants his death well-witnessed.

So everyone is here.

Everyone but her.

Brienne.

Tyrion had informed him, after Jaime was sentenced to death, that Lady Brienne was out on a scouting mission and was not expected to return until the following day at the earliest. That is why she wasn’t at his trial. She isn’t currently at Winterfell. Jaime had very much hoped to see her.

At least she is not here now. He is oddly grateful for this, the smallest of mercies. That Brienne will not have to see this. Jaime has seen men burn. He would not wish that memory on anyone, least of all her.

He looks to the sky where the dragon circles high overhead and thinks of the last time he saw Brienne, back at the dragonpit. They had barely spoken.

That is not the final memory of him he would wish upon her either, but at least… at least it won’t be this.

He looks away from the great winged beast in the sky to the people of the North. So many people are about to watch him die. Tyrion alone among those who watch him now will mourn. Jaime aches with the thought of causing his brother any more pain.

Tyrion is the one Jaime entrusted with responsibility of talking to Brienne. Tomorrow. After she gets back.

After Jaime is dead.

_Tell her…_

_Tell her…_

He doesn’t even remember exactly what he told Tyrion to say to Brienne. It wasn’t half of what he wished to. But there are things he can not haunt her with.

_(Tell her that I came North for her.)_

Those are just the beginning of the words he held back. He came north and will die because of it. He will not have her blaming herself for any part of this. Not a single part.

His fate was sealed years and years ago.

The dark shadow in the sky grows larger in his vision as it circles closer.

His death approaches.

The Stranger himself wrapped in scale and teeth and fire.

It will not be long now.

*

The dragon lands beside the last living Targaryen and she begins to say her piece. None of what she says is new to Jaime, merely an echo of what she’d said in the great hall as she passed her judgement on him that morning, but now she has a much larger audience and a dragon beside her.

She is mighty and terrifying. The folks of the North fear her, and that is what she wants them to do.

Jaime does not.

Jaime is beyond fear, beyond hope.

“Can we hurry this along?” Jaime asks, bored by her theatrics, refusing to play his part the way she wishes. She wants people to see the Kingslayer beg and grovel and bend the knee, scared to die. He will do no such thing. He knows that even if he was compelling to beg for his worthless life, it would not change anything.

She will kill him no matter what he does.

No matter what, Jaime Lannister will die today.

There is peace in that. He just wishes… he wishes it didn’t have to be fire.

He’s seen enough people burned alive to know… to know that it will not be a noble end. There is nothing heroic about it. He will just burn.

Scream and burn.

The dragon queen plows through her remarks, raising her voice ever so slightly but otherwise ignoring his interruption, determined to make sure every living soul knows why Jaime is to die in front of their eyes.

It is a long list of reasons.

But he will scream only when the fire claims him. And not even then if he can help it.

He will not plead or beg or anything. It is not the death he would have chosen for himself, but it is the death he will receive.

He will die here.

So be it.

*

The dragon queen’s speech is winding down. Jaime can tell by looking at Tyrion’s face. Jaime’s been ignoring Daenerys as thoroughly as he could for the last little while. These are to be his last moments in this world, he has better things to do than listen to Daenerys Targaryen.

Then there is quiet.

The dragon, his death, is at the ready.

There is but one word left in the world for Jaime to hear.

He closes his eyes.

But instead of the word used to command the dragon, he hears someone on horseback riding full tilt instead, the heavy sound of someone dropping to the ground in front of him and then smacking the horse to keep running.

Jaime opens his eyes.

There’s someone standing between him and Daenerys Targaryen.

There’s someone standing between him and a dragon.

“No,” the someone says and his heart drops and then races as if it's trying to beat another thirty years worth while it can. He knows that voice.

Brienne.

Brienne of Tarth.

Brienne is standing between him and Daenerys Targaryen.

Between him and a dragon.

Like she alone is enough to shield him from dragonfire, from death itself.

“No!” Jaime screams, taking the two steps forward to grab her, trying to push her out of the way, to get her clear of the path of the fire that is one word away.

He has to get her away from him. He has to get her away from him. Daenerys will not stand for this for long. She will command the dragon to kill him anyway. She will command the dragon to kill them both. Jaime can’t let that happen. He won’t. He won’t he won’t he won’t.

Brienne is steady on her feet, unflappable as she grabs hold of his armour at his neck and keeps herself between him and the dragon, always, no matter how much he struggles, no matter how much he tries to wrench them the apart, she is there.

So he fights against her relentless grip, the effortless way she stays right with him no matter which way he tries to escape, to push her free, to make it obvious to every single person watching that he is not asking her to do this. That he wants nothing more than to die alone so she can live. All the while he’s shouting and screaming at his executioners to get her out of the way before they kill him, please just get her out of harm's way before they kill him.

Brienne is unbothered by his distress, her hold on him unwavering, her eyes on Daenerys and no one else. The crowd is watching this in stunned silence but Brienne seems unaware of them as well.

“Please don’t do this,” Jaime pleads as he clutches at any part of Brienne he can reach, trying to get her attention, to make her see what she is doing. He has to make her understand. She can’t save him. She has to let him go. She has to listen to him. She must.

Brienne doesn’t speak to him. She doesn’t even look at him. She just keeps moving so she is always between him and the dragon as they scuffle as she speaks directly to the dragon queen, “I demand a trial by combat!” she shouts up at her, “I will fight for him!”

“He has already stood trial. He was sentenced to die by dragonfire.”

“Brienne please,” he begs. He’s stopped physically struggling. She’s stronger than him, especially now, the journey North was not kind to him. But he has to make her see reason somehow. She has to stop this. She has to stop right now. He wanted to die in the arms of the woman he loves but not like this. Never like this. Brienne must not die with him. Brienne must live. 

“I will fight for him!” Brienne repeats, drawing her sword with her right hand, holding onto his arm with her left.

“You’d fight a dragon for this man?” Sansa Stark asks, speaking for the first time since this ordeal began.

“I would,” Brienne says, loud and clear and certain, “And I will win.”

The quiet of the crowd shifts and stills as the dragon queen and the Lady of Winterfell look down at them. Daenerys with nothing but contempt, but Sansa… Sansa’s expression is far more unreadable.

But it is the energy of the crowd that Jaime feels coursing through him.

The crowd that just heard Brienne declare that she would fight a dragon for him.

The crowd that just heard Brienne declare that she would fight a dragon for him and win.

They should be laughing. At her arrogance. At her foolishness. At her stupidity.

Not a soul is laughing.

_They believe her, _Jaime realizes with a jolt, _They fucking believe her._

Jaime can’t see Brienne’s face, she is still standing in front of him, but he reaches for her left hand with his and squeezes. She does not falter at the contact, her sword remains perfectly steady in her other hand, but she returns the touch, squeezing back as he steps closer to her, staying mostly behind her where she wants him to be, but he needs to stand with her in this moment.

A little ways away a Stark and a Targaryen lean a little closer together and speak, neither of them taking their eyes off where Brienne and Jaime stand together staring into the face of death hand in hand. Neither the Stark nor the Targaryen is unaware of the vast number of people bearing witness to this behind them. The vast number of people who in this moment, are very much hoping Brienne prevails, one way or another.

Several very long, very still moments later, Daenerys and Sansa step apart.

“Bring them here,” Daenerys commands, “It seems we have much to discuss.”

A handful of guards move forward but keep their distance, keeping their swords sheathed. Beside him Brienne keeps hers held at the ready.

“Swear to me no harm will come to him until we’ve spoken,” she says, looking to the women on the higher ground.

“I swear it,” Sansa replies without hesitation, “By the old gods and the new. No harm will come to either of you until we have spoken.”

And this is how Jaime finds himself being led by guard back towards the castle with Brienne at his side. They’re still holding hands.

He tries to follow Brienne’s lead and look nowhere but directly ahead of him but he chances a glance as he passes the start of the crowd.

Tyrion looks thunderstruck.

Only Bran Stark looks unmoved by anything that just occurred in front of him.

_*_

To Jaime’s surprise they are not led directly to a cell in the dungeon, nor to a place to execute them quickly and privately. Instead they are led to a part of the castle he has never been to, to a fairly small room with only a single other door.

The guards lead him and Brienne to the second door and one of them opens it to reveal a small room with no other exits, only a tiny sliver of a window, not even big enough for him to put his hand through.

Sansa looks to Brienne, who takes a glance around the small room and then nods her approval.

“You will wait here,” Sansa tells him with an impassive expression that doesn’t quite cancel out the silent questions she’s sending Brienne’s way.

“I will be right on the other side of the door,” Brienne explains without quite meeting his eye. He lets go of her hand and she steps away from him and follows Sansa back into the room they just walked through to where the person who wants Jaime dead more than anyone except perhaps Cersei is waiting for her.

The door between them is thick, the walls eating the sound of the women in the room next door, discussing what they need to discuss without raising their voices enough for Jaime to catch more than the hints of conversation as he rubs his thumb over his fingers, trying to hold on to the exact feeling of Brienne’s hand in his as she faced down a dragon to save him.

*

It is one of Sansa’s guards who is not Brienne who opens the door some time later and he blinks, adjusting to the light.

“You will stay in the North and fight with us against the army of the dead as you originally requested,” Sansa informs him, “You will be given a room.”

He’s still trying to get his bearings, still looking around for Brienne in the very sparsely populated room when Sansa dismisses him and turns and leaves him standing there.

He looks around. Brienne is not here. Neither is Daenerys. Sansa and her guard have left. Only Tyrion remains.

“Where is she?” Jaime asks him at once.

“Lady Brienne is giving her report from her scouting mission I believe. The one she rushed back from to—”

“Her report?” Jaime repeats, bewildered.

“She and a handful of others were out looking for—”

“Tyrion—”

“It’s important! She is the first one back and—”

Jaime tries to listen to what is so important but his mind is in no mood for it. He falls silent, still hearing the ringing silence of the crowd from when Brienne—

“So. It seems you are a free man once again.”

“I…” Jaime falters, looking down at his brother, “I did not expect…”

“No one did.”

There’s quiet for another lingering moment. Jaime walks over to the window and looks out onto the grounds below.

“What she did out there,” Tyrion says softly, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Jaime exhales. Nods. Watches a man drag a bundle of firewood across the courtyard below before he looks out to where he stood not an hour ago waiting to die. Where Brienne stood not an hour before and—

“Jaime,” Tyrion says, and there’s such weight in it Jaime turns to look at him, “Nobody has ever seen anything like that before.”

“I know.”

_I know._

*

Tyrion goes with him to get something to eat after they leave that room. That room where someway, somehow, Brienne had negotiated for his life. For his freedom. And for her own.

“They have been given strict orders not to bother you,” Tyrion says in an undertone, noticing the way Jaime’s gaze slides over everyone who passes them in the halls, “And like anyone would dare lay a finger on you after what they saw today.”

Everyone saw Brienne offer to slay a dragon on his behalf today. They need little imagination to extrapolate what Brienne would do to the mortal man who tried to harm him.

After he’s eaten (everyone in the hall stared at him, but no one dared approach) he’s taken to the room he was given. He is half-expecting to find one of the Targaryen guards lying in wait to do what the dragon did not but his room is free from assassins and more than serviceable. Small but comfortable. He paces for a while, wanting to go find Brienne, but not knowing where to begin his search. She will come to him, he decides somewhere along the way as he does another lap of the tiny room, when she is done with her report and whatever other duties she has deemed more important than… what happened today. She will come and find him.

Brienne does not come and find him that night.

*

In fact, he doesn’t see her at all until nearly the end of the following day, when he is pacing in a much larger perimeter than his room allows hoping to run into her, which eventually he does. But Brienne is at Sansa’s side. He all but runs so he crosses paths with them.

“Ser Jaime,” Brienne says, with a slight nod.

“Lady Brienne,” he answers, but before he can ask Sansa to excuse Brienne for a moment the interaction is over, Brienne following Sansa through a door Jaime knows he is not welcome to follow them through.

*

Jaime sees Brienne out on the grounds the following morning and heads over to her, determined to speak with her.

He’s barely set foot on the frozen ground before he draws the attention of the soldiers nearby, and before long every single person he passes stops what they are doing to watch him. A path is clearing between him and Brienne with every step he takes. Everyone is looking at the two of them, though Brienne is pretending not to have noticed.

“Ser Jaime,” she says, when he is a few steps away, undeniably here beside her.

The yard is unearthly quiet.

“Lady Brienne.”

Everyone is watching.

Everyone is listening.

Everyone.

He came out here with the intent to ask to speak to her in private, but he knows he can not do so. Not when so many eyes and ears are on them.

So instead he tells her most of the truth. That he came North to fight alongside her, if she will have him. Then they discuss the command she was given with stilted formality. And that’s it.

Half of Winterfell watches as he makes his retreat.

*

Tyrion brings him to a strategy meeting the next day. Even in this room. Even as he stands on the other side of the table from Brienne, everyone stops to watch. To listen.

“Ser Jaime,” Brienne says with only a slight nod, the same nod she used to greet everyone else in the room.

“Lady Brienne,” Jaime answers.

Everyone waits for something else to be said. For something else to pass between them. But they hold firm. Say nothing. Do nothing.

Then they stand through the meeting without so much at a glance between them.

Well, she stands through the meeting without so much as a glance at him.

*

They have not been alone together since the incident with the dragon. Not once. Not even for a moment.

Jaime is not fool enough to believe this is a coincidence.

*

_I should be dead,_ Jaime thinks as he walks the outer walls of Winterfell, _I should be dead but I am not._

Down below he sees Brienne in the yard, surveying the ground they will be holding together when the dead army comes.

He is alive because Brienne wants him alive.

She wants him alive, but she doesn’t want to speak to him.

This is a much harder truth to live with than a death sentence.

*

He sees her as she is finishing her meal later that night.

“Lady Brienne.”

“Ser Jaime.”

Every one in the halls holds still to listen to what comes next. But they say nothing else.

*

He wonders if this is a condition of their survival: that she not speak to him beyond required pleasantries in public.

He voices this thought to Tyrion, but Tyrion tells him it wasn’t part of any agreement and then looks at him with so many unspoken questions that Jaime excuses himself from the conversation before Tyrion can ask any of them.

*

Jaime sees the way the soldiers look at Brienne as he watches from a distance. They will follow her. They will follow her into battle, to death itself, because they believe her capable of surviving it. They believe she is capable of leading them to survive it. That is a remarkable thing at any time, but especially now, facing the odds they are all currently facing.

That is why, Jaime decides, that is why they let him live.

That is why he is free to die alongside the rest of them when the dead overtake them all in a few days (He’s been in the strategy meetings. Death is coming, as surely as winter always is). What difference does it make if he dies by fire or by battle? Either way he will be dead.

And this way, they get to keep Brienne alive. Brienne of Tarth. Brienne the Unafraid. Brienne who stood between a dragon and the Kingslayer and raised her sword to keep him alive. Brienne the Brave. Everywhere he goes it is still a topic of conversation. The way she rode in. The way she managed to contain Jaime and keep her cool as she addressed the dragon queen. The way she offered to fight a dragon.

The way Brienne did the bravest thing anyone can remember anyone doing and then calmly delivered her scouting report and went back to her duties as if all of this, any of this, was no more than what she expects of herself.

Jaime’s survival for a few extra days was nothing to trade in exchange for such a warrior.

*

They see each other in the crowded hall.

“Ser Jaime.”

“Lady Brienne.”

This is all they say to one another now.

*

The long night is very nearly upon them, battle almost imminent when it happens, all of a sudden and with no warning at all:

Jaime and Brienne are alone together.

They realize at the same time that there is no one else left in the room but it is Brienne who speaks first, formal to a fault, “Ser Jaime.”

But they are _alone_ and Jaime is having none of that, “You offered to fight a dragon in exchange for my life.”

“We don’t need to discuss it,” Brienne says not looking at him anymore, still formal, but not practised. Cracking under his determination to talk about it.

“We don’t need to…” Jaime trails off, dumbfounded by her dismissal, at her casually brushing aside what she did as if it were little more than nothing at all, “Brienne. You faced down a dragon. _A dragon._”

“You did the same for me.”

He falters, more baffled than ever, and it takes him a moment to realize what she is talking about, “A bear is not a dragon.”

“You were unarmed and hurt and weakened and—”

“Brienne!” he cuts her off, refusing to believe what he is hearing, “You stood between me and a dragon. No one has ever done that. No one has ever done that and lived! Don’t you hear what people are saying about you? That was the bravest thing anyone in the North has ever seen and you won’t even let me thank you—”

“There is no need—”

“Brienne—”

“Jaime!” she fires back.

She has never addressed him as Jaime without a ‘Ser’ in front of it. Not once in her life.

“Like it or not you saved my life,” Jaime says, pushing his advantage, “You are free to regret it, but I am going to thank you for it regardless.”

Brienne’s eyes widen in horror at his accusation, “I don’t regret what I did. I would never—”

“Then why can’t we talk about it?!“

Something breaks between them, he can feel it charge the air in the room like a summer storm before Brienne answers, “Because you’re going to ask me why.”

That gives him pause.

Yes, he wants to ask her why she did it. But not because he doesn't know. He already knows why. He knows exactly why. Everyone who saw what she did knows why, everyone in the North knows _why._ But gods he wants to ask her. He wants to ask her because he wants to hear her answer, wants to hear her say why she did what she did.

But apparently Brienne would rather do anything but discuss it.

“Fine!” he snaps, all of the anger and frustration that she gave him a few extra days of life and then refused to even talk to him the whole time and now they are going to die, die fighting an endless horde of dead men, and even now she doesn’t want to talk about anything pouring into his words, “I won’t ask you why. But perhaps you’d like to ask me why. Why I traveled north alone in the dead of winter to the largest gathering of my sworn enemies I could find? Or why I gave you your sword and your armour and sent you to find Sansa Stark? Why I let you pass through my army’s camp unharmed? Maybe you want to know why I jumped into a bear pit? As you noted, I was unarmed and weak and injured at the time. Or maybe you’d like to ask me why, why when _you_ got between me and my execution my only conscious thought was about getting you out of the path of the inevitable dragonfire? Go ahead Lady Brienne, ask me _why_.”

His blood is hot and they are so close, closer than they have been since they grappled in front of a dragon, fighting tooth and nail to save the other. Her face is so close to his, her mouth is so close to his. He can feel her hold her breath.

“Ask me why,” he says again, but there’s no anger in it this time. There’s nothing but hope and truth and the reason. The reason why_._

She raises her hand to touch the side of his face and hesitates. Only lets herself touch him when he breathes her name. He brings his hand to her cheek but does not close the distance between, does nothing but wait. All he has to do is stand on his toes and they will be kissing. That’s how close they are…

“Jaime…” she says, “W—”

She doesn’t get the single word question out before they both surge forward and—

A deafening rumble and the sound of the advance alarm being raised jars them both to turn away just before their lips touch to look in the direction of the terrible noise.

Jaime exhales in disbelief. Of course. Of fucking course.

Beside him Brienne is already standing straighter, like her sword is already drawn, like she is already on the front lines, like she wasn’t just about to kiss him.

“Time to die,” Jaime tells her. It’s not bitterness in his voice, just sorrow. Sorrow that it took them so long to get so close and it won’t be enough. It doesn’t matter that they got here. There isn’t enough time for them.

“No,” Brienne says, “We’re going to live.”

Then she kisses him. Just like that. Quick and affectionate and like they’ve done it a thousand times before. But they haven’t. They haven’t. Not once. Not ever.

She steps back and looks at him, “Jaime, we’re going to live.”

Jaime stares at her for a moment, still reeling from the feel of her lips against his, from how certain she is that they’re going to survive. That they’re going to live.

Then it hits him.

He believes her.

They’re going to live.

They’re going to _live._

_Let the dead do their worst_, he thinks as the two of them stride towards the battlefield with singular purpose.

_We’re going to live._


End file.
